Sarajevo, San Francisco and Salt Spring Island B.C. film festivals: lovely people!

The weekend of March 3-6 was our busiest in awhile...Three International film festivals, running simultaneously, showed our film to brand new audiences.

Judy and I were attending the first ever, San Francisco Green film fest at the swanky Landmark Embarcadero Cinemas while Deb Vester, one of our main characters from the film represented us at the wonderful Salt Spring Island Documentary festival up in the Canadian Gulf Islands. She had a wonderful time and says the audience was super engaged in the film...thanks to Diane Copeland and the fest organizers for the invitation and giving Deb the royal treatment.

The third screening was at the 17 International Environmental film festival in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzogovina. (see their wonderful green eyelash graphic) We're still waiting to hear how that went-we'll follow up later. We had over one hundred people at our Sarajevo screening according to the festival director!

San Franciso was wonderful...we met so lots of new people, saw other terrific films, networked the crowd with postcards and sold DVD's too. We had such a great venue, time slot (8:15pm on a Saturday night!) one of the largest turnouts of the festival and a special 'Centerpiece' Flower Power after party directly following the screening...Thanks so much to Rachel Caplan (festival Director) and her top notch staff including BTTG's own Shane Keller (he appears in the '88 healing gathering and says " the purpose that brings us all together is LOVE.") Shane came down from Humbolt County to volunteer at the festival and we had a terrific time getting reacquainted...he's a terrific human being.

We also met Dorio and Tree who came up from Watsonville to be at the screening and also participated in the Q & A following the film. They are both part of the original Okanogan community and joined us for the after party as well...thanks for coming to San Francisco you two!

Ojai film festival offers a taste of Hollywood mixed with beads and incense.

If you drive about an hour northwest of Los Angeles, tucked away into the coastal hills, you 'll find Ojai. A native American word meaning 'Moon's Nest'. Ojai has about 8,000 residents, a mix of L.A. retirees, Hollywood veterans, farmers and many counter cultural folks who love its spiritual,small-town vibe..sits at the base of some impressive mounts called the topa topas...At sunset the hills glow warmly in what the natives refer to as 'the pink moment".

We enjoyed some warm moments ourselves as we showed our film at the 11th Ojai film festival Nov. 4-7th. Met lots of Southern Californians at Ojai who loved our film and thanked us for its sweetness, honesty and uplifting message. Great weather greeted our Southern Cal debut along with good sized audiences too...We loved both the Art Center and Ojai Playhouse venues.

We attended some terrific workshops with legendary cinematographer Michael Chapman (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Detail), listened to the wisdom of Independent Producer Larry Turman (the Graduate), rubbed shoulders with other filmmakers from L.A., latvia and AFI and saw films you just can't see anywhere else...Special thanks to Steve and Liz Grumette for sharing their home with us and talking us up with locals...who couldn't have been warmer...thanks Ojai!

Soap Lake works its magic!

Dry Falls...20 mins north of Soap Lake on highway 17.... Not to be missed!

l-R: Judy, Skeeter (Michael Pilarski) and Kevin at Soap Lake's Masquers Theater on May 15th for Opening Night of the Soap Lake film Series, sponsored by Jacol filmworks.

Good crowd, great people...we met organic farmers, permaculture gurus, seasoned filmmakers and simply lots of like-minded folk who came out to support us. Soap lake has healing waters and we wasted no time checking it out...The lake has been a mecca to thousands in its heyday (early 1900's through WWII)...since then it's been largely overlooked.

But thanks to visionaries like Kathy Kiefer, local filmmaker and Soap Lake resident, it's on the comeback trail...We loved it and can't wait to go back and soak up more sunshine and it's amazing healing waters. Soap lake Washington.

It's also becoming a haven for artists and all sorts of alternative folk who love the natural beauty of the area and are creating real community.

We're finally Here! Byron Bay Australia!

(photo: top- Byron Bay Festival Director J'aimee Skippon-Volke doubles as tour guide on day 1 bottom photo: The view looking South along the Australian east coast from the Byron Bay light house.)

We just arrived today, March 9th, 2010 after flying 14 hours from Los Angeles to Brisbane.

Took a two and a half hour shuttle van from the airport, where we met a couple of hippie kids were coming home from a snowboarding trip to Austria..."yeah, I lived in a tepee too" says Marty, now a cabinet maker doing contract work in the Byron Bay area...I'll tell my Mom about your film showing this weekend.

Our film posters are up, we got a personal tour of Byron Bay by BBIFF director, J'aimme Skippon-Volke, an evening walk in the tropical heat to work out the jet-lag stiffness and a great meal tonight at our deluxe accomodations...wow! As Judy likes to say, 'even I'm jealous of my own life!'

This festival is getting out the word and putting us in a great time slot (Closing day at 11:45am). They're displaying our film graphic prominently in the local newspaper ads, placed our poster right at the entry to their festival ticket office and it just feels great knowing that we're getting that kind of support here in Australia. It feels good...I think it's going to be a wonderful experience here. We're on the short list for the "Best Environmental film" award..

More to come! We screen on Saturday, March 13th.